Mohrg learns to paint (part one where to start)

[Mohrg]

Howdy all,
Firstly a bit of background then on to the painting!
I have been a hobbyist for 20 years now, from the first time my local bookshop stocked the old skeleton horde box, till i moved to university and actually found other hobbyists!
After uni a brief stint as a GW staff member taught me some very basic painting skills, but tabletop standard was always the order of the day.
A few years on and gaming is much less of a priority for me, if i go to any event i want to be winning best painted army, and simply having some nice pieces to display at home.
So what better place to learn some hobby skills than here.
Right intro waffle over, I am currently finishing work on a set of dark vengeance terminators for a friend who doesn't paint at all, but the first "improvement project" I want to work on is a cryx force for Warmachine this is the only game i'm playing often (along with epic) so i'd like a beautiful army to distract my opponent!
I'd like to go for something like this:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/290731?browseid=4069443

I like the idea of a pale green with lots of rust and damage, but i'm not even sure where to start, is it better to build paler colours with layers of ink on a white or grey primer?
Basing wise I'm looking at a dirty brown swamp theme (anything to get away from urban basing that i have used on 5k of Dark angels and 5K of Necrons). but this will likewise be my first real water effect attempt (although I'll worry about painting first).

I promise to put up a picture shortly of some epic leman Russ for a Genestealer cult/ Imperial Guard list I will be putting together over the year as well but at the moment I need to track down my camera, its currently somewhere sfae :doh:

So thoughts on where to start with this would be much appreciated, then hopefully I can go from there to something a bit more technical

Thanks for reading and thanks for any advice!

 

[TrystanGST]

Lighter colors do show up easier on lighter primer. I'm not sure I'd try to get my color exclusively with ink though. In that particular instance, you'd probably start with a darker forest green, and slow work your way lighter with a combination of white and a little yellow.

 

[Kretcher]

For the rust and weathering, I would look into using oils and some terpantine or simular to create streaks of colour onto the model, there should be some tutorials around to show what kind of effect you can get. Just not time to help more just now, at work and having a break then visiting this page.

/Kretcher

 

[Yuggoth]

Personally, I would not start too dark, thou Trystans method might have its advantages. If I where to copy the picture above, I would indeed start with white primer, then patiently layer thinned verdigris and greens, maybe adding some interest in the shades by working in tiny amounts of opposite colours like purple. Have done something similar to simulate jade, worked like a charm (unfortunatly no pics at hand)
For the rust streaks, as weird as it sounds, try out those reddish-brown inks/washes normally used for shading skintones. Thinn them some more, place them around a bolt or crevice and carefully nudge them down following the natural course of gravity. For soot, I think vallejo has something called "smoke(y?) ink" which works well. Don`t know if GW has something similar.

Hope that makes at least some sense, kinda hard to explain in a foreign language.

 

[Mohrg]

Ok all so I had a little time this morning, and here is the first attempt:



It still needs weathering (and a better photo) but it looks okish hopefullly i shall have time to weather it up over the weekend.

I started with Caliban green added white and a spot of yellow (and a tiny bit of purple), its not very smooth, i'm not sure if blending is the way to go (at which point i really need to learn how to do it properly).
It was over a grey primer mostly because I had that to hand already, i shall work from a white primer for the next test so i can compare.

I shall try and weather over the weekend and report back

Thanks for the help so far.

Edit for a better photo

 

[TrystanGST]

It's kind of hard to tell from the photo, but it looks like you might want to make a more gradual transition from the base green to the yellow/white. Unless that's the look you were going for.

 

[secretpaintgeek]

First of all let me say Hi and welcome to the community
Now to the painting, It seems to me that Glazing (Or juicing as some call it) would really help you with this style of painting. I wont go into details here as there are a million articles that explain it far better than i can but it basically involves layering very thin paints over one another.
Being a fairly recent arrival here myself I have to say the biggest lesson I have taken is to experiment and find your own style. Others will give advice and it is often valuable but dont try to directly copy, Take what you like and adapt it to you own style. The primer is a perfect example of this. Some people swear by white, some black and some grey. No one is wrong here and each has advantages and disadvantages. Personally i generally use grey but on occasion I will change to black if i know i want a darker feel for the mini.
But use Glazes

Look forward to seeing your progress in the future
SPG

 

[Mohrg]

I'm back! Short hiatus due to real life getting well and truly involved in all my time, many life changes later, a very sick pet snake I am having the opportunity to sort a proper painting area in my flat, as my lady is moving in and my housemate has gone (finally) so I am now entitled to a hobby room! First amongst my things to do is have better lighting to paint / photograph by, I have a new storage solution which I will be putting a picture up of as soon as it is organised!

My main question today revolves around painting area, how much space is ideal? I always felt cramped on my desk before due to sharing it with my PC and the paints (the paints will live off my desk in future).
Also what kind of lighting do folks use? Where is good to get it from? I have a daylight lamp but I find it makes my paints dry out rather quickly, and I haven't acquired a wet pallet but its on the list

 

[me_in_japan]

Your war jack is looking nice. I'm inclined to suggest starting with a base coat about 3/4 of the way to your highlight, then shading and highlighting from there. For the stains and weathering, I'd defo suggest oil paints. They're just so much easier to use use for that kind of streaking effect. You can see it on my Blight Drone in my gallery. All the weathering on that is either oils or pigments, but tbh it's mostly oils.

In terms of space, as much as possible is best. Obviously what's available varies for everyone, but basically the more space you have the easier it is to work.

As for light, sunlight is good, but failing that any decent bright light, preferably from multiple angles is fine. Bear in mind how the minis will be viewed. Are you painting for tabletop? Display? Posting in the galleries? What kind of light will they be viewed under?

Finally, wet palettes will change your life - they are ace and make blending a million times easier. You can easily make one out of the back of a warmachine blister pack, a wet, folded piece of kitchen paper, and a piece of baking parchment, cut to fit.